September 1, 2020
In From Hell to Challah, Shari Wallack shares her inspiring, funny, and uplifting story through despair, survival, and mental emancipation during the chaos of 2020. Her journey begins inside a mental hospital and continues on a trip to eighteen destinations throughout the United States during the Covid-19 pandemic. She details her innermost thoughts, hopes, and fears while illustrating how she went from crippling depression to joy over a three-month period.
Along with a multitude of colorful characters, Shari navigates an exciting and unusual voyage of self-discovery and healing. Among the useful lessons she learns along the way, she discovers that cooking and baking calm her. She provides the recipes that helped her through her struggles, with the hope that others will find the same much needed comfort. Shari’s heartwarming and humorous story from despair to joy shows that happiness and purpose can be found even in the most difficult of times.
Discussion Questions
Courtesy of Shari Wallack
- What special talents or skills do you think you could develop so that you are prepared for another pandemic or situation that requires you to be housebound and/or isolated?
- What do you do when you feel anxious or depressed? Can you find a way to change the station in your brain, engage in an activity or do something to make yourself feel better?
- Would you have allowed someone to stay with you during a pandemic? Why or why not?
- What are your bucket list destinations? What keeps you from visiting them?
- How well do you know your own country? What was your favorite place to visit and why?
- What is your relationship like with your family? What can you do to improve any frustrating dynamics?
- How do you feel about psycho-therapy, anxiety and depression meds, recreational drugs and the opioid crisis in America?
- Have you ever been inside a mental institution? What was it like?
- Are you living your dream? If not, how do you plan to get to a point where you can truly be joyful about your life?
